From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Original-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 713EABBBB for ; Sat, 4 Mar 2006 15:36:10 +0100 (CET) Received: from pauillac.inria.fr (pauillac.inria.fr [128.93.11.35]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id k24Ea9Gd018272 for ; Sat, 4 Mar 2006 15:36:10 +0100 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA01798 for ; Sat, 4 Mar 2006 15:36:09 +0100 (MET) Received: from kraid.nerim.net (smtp-106-saturday.nerim.net [62.4.16.106]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id k24Ea9aJ018269 for ; Sat, 4 Mar 2006 15:36:09 +0100 Received: from hector.lesours (bstarynk.net8.nerim.net [213.41.176.170]) by kraid.nerim.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F57E40E21; Sat, 4 Mar 2006 15:36:08 +0100 (CET) Received: from basile by hector.lesours with local (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1FFXrc-0004TM-OC; Sat, 04 Mar 2006 15:36:08 +0100 Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 15:36:08 +0100 To: Sarah Mount Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Benchmarks against imperative languages Message-ID: <20060304143608.GA16996@ours.starynkevitch.net> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-15 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11+cvs20060126 From: Basile STARYNKEVITCH X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 4409A5D9.001 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 4409A5D9.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 basile:01 basile:01 ecrivait:01 ocaml:01 ocaml:01 kloc:01 nerim:01 faiencerie:01 92340:01 reine:01 wrote:01 imperative:01 tunes:02 bagley:02 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.3 (2005-04-27) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=FORGED_RCVD_HELO autolearn=disabled version=3.0.3 Le Sat, Mar 04, 2006 at 02:04:44PM +0000, Sarah Mount écrivait/wrote: > Informal benchmarks (Doug Bagley, Jon Harrop, ...) of OCaml code > against other languages seem to suggest that Ocaml code performs about > as well as C++ code in many cases. Does anyone know of any published > (as in dead-tree) work that might confirm/deny this? I don't believe this question has a precise, practical answer. We all know (by experience) that Ocaml performs quite well. We also know that for most (but not all) of the software we are coding, the cost and time of development does significantly matter, and a 10% decrease in performance is not that important, hence Ocaml brings a real win. A real answer would be to have a team of programmers fluent in Ocaml write a code (an real-sized application of hundreds of KLOC of source code, representing several man-years of effort) which has exactly the same precise specification than an existing code written in C. But this will never happen (it is too costly but quite useless an experiment). For example, nobody will recode in Ocaml an exact clone of gcc-4.1, firefox-1.5, or mysql-5.0! I don't even know about big-sized Ocaml applications which have C++ written competitors.... Why do you need more than the informal benchmarks, and your personal experience? Maybe a related question is "why corporations (or professionals) are switching from C++ to Ocaml" but this is a question that won't be (for social and political reasons easy to guess) easily and really answered. Is your real question: "help me to convince my boss to let me code in OCaml"? Regards. -- Basile STARYNKEVITCH http://starynkevitch.net/Basile/ email: basilestarynkevitchnet aliases: basiletunesorg = bstarynknerimnet 8, rue de la Faïencerie, 92340 Bourg La Reine, France